“Sad is the land that wants a hero.” Maharaj Krishna Raina prefers to practise what German playwright Bertolt Brecht famously stated in a rustic that likes to take pleasure in hero worship.
Over time, the veteran theatre practitioner has coated his conviction with a mild smile and used tradition as a catalyst for socio-political change in delicate elements of the nation. Be it Punjab, Kashmir, or the North East, Raina says his mantra has at all times been, “Hero nahin banana hai.” His artwork at all times does the speaking.
Throughout the pandemic, the septuagenarian bought time to pause and look again at his profession; the result’s an immensely readable account. Titled Earlier than I Neglect (revealed by Penguin Classics), the memoir traces the historic occasions that formed Raina and knowledgeable his artwork.
M.Okay. Raina poses in entrance of {a photograph} of his adaptation of King Lear in Bandh Pather type of Kashmiri people theatre
| Picture Credit score:
Anuj Kumar
Deep recall
The theft of the holy relic from the Hazratbal shrine in his hometown Srinagar in 1963, the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, the brutal homicide of the cultural activist and shut buddy Safdar Hashmi in 1989, the Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus, the fallout of the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, and the ethnic pressure within the North East — the memoir reads like a layered script the place it’s unimaginable to take sides, and solely classes might be drawn. No surprise his buddy, director Sudhir Mishra is considering conjuring up a movie script out of Raina’s wealthy reminiscence.
An actor-auteur-activist who stood his floor in turbulent circumstances, at instances life-threatening, Raina has pen-painted some life-aletring moments. Like in his performs, in actual life too, Raina avoids cliches and finds humour and hope at nighttime. Taking a line from his well-known play on the Oppenheimer trial, a lot earlier than Christopher Nolan woke as much as the relevance of the physicist, Raina says he doesn’t prefer to observe the concepts of others.
In Safdar’s case, he questioned the forces of disruption, together with his buddies, together with actor Shabana Azmi, on the opening ceremony of the Worldwide Movie Competition of India in Delhi.
A number of years later, after the demolition of Babri mosque, Raina was once more on the forefront, coining the slogan: Ab koi nara na hoga, bas desh bachana hoga (Now there can be no sloganeering, it would solely be about saving the nation) and questioned Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
When Kashmiri Pandits had been pushed out of their houses, he held the silence of the secularists accountable for pushing the Pandits and the political narrative into the palms of the right-wing ecosystem.
“We will’t stop to be residents,” says Raina. He attracts inspiration from the idol of the Buddha, the place he’s in deep meditation, and one hand is touching the bottom.
“I analyse it for myself as, for those who stay in contact with the bottom, you gained’t go mistaken.”
M Okay Raina at his residence in Noida
| Picture Credit score:
Anuj Kumar
Usually, he says, the remedy for stinging nettle is one other weed that grows close by. “You simply must search for it.”
Inquiry, he says, is necessary within the Indian custom.
“Chela guru se sawal karta hai (The disciple asks for solutions from the guru). It’s there in our Puranas. It’s the crux of the Bhagavad Gita. Sadly, this custom is diminishing.”
Raina describes himself because the “product of socialist India,” which allowed him loads of inexpensive books and a possibility to hone his craft on the Nationwide Faculty of Drama.
“The vast majority of us had been from modest backgrounds with a wealthy repertoire of custom and no inferiority advanced.” He was maybe the primary to actually observe the aim of the theatre faculty: taking the artwork type to the grassroots.
Battling stereotypes, Raina labored onerous to revive people theatre within the Kashmir Valley on the flip of the millennium. “I revived my hyperlinks with the normal artist villages that dot the realm between Anantnag and Pahalgam and labored quietly. I didn’t take shelter from authorities and by no means allowed anyone to boast in public that Raina has come to work with them.”
He merged himself with the locals and offered them with alternatives to contribute to theatre.
“We requested native potters to make masks and implored tailors to tweak their craft to create costumes. A trunk maker improvised to design synthetic swords.”
Formidable battles
When the viewers measurement reached 5,000, the separatists woke as much as Raina and his staff’s presence within the Pir Panjal.
“They tried to thwart our efforts, however by then the villagers had realised tradition’s function in venting pent-up emotions. They might inform these with the weapons: ab tum humein hasne bhi nahin doge. (now, you gained’t even permit us to giggle).”
Raina fondly remembers his performing stint that began with Avatar Kaul’s avant-garde 27 Down with Rakhee, the place he performed a ticket collector. Shot on an actual practice, Raina remembers that the authorities gave in to the persistence of the younger staff.
“So long as you can disguise the cameras, it was not too costly to shoot on platforms and trains. In actual fact, at instances, passengers took me for an actual TC. Taking pictures on railway stations and trains turned costly solely after BR Chopra made The Burning Prepare.”
Raina went on to work with stalwarts of artwork home cinema like Mani Kaul and Mrinal Sen.
“We had been a part of a motion that believed in wholesome theatre and needed to hold ahead the identical sensibilities in cinema, however the motion fizzled out when filmmakers began to rope in stars below field workplace strain.”
